Hello The company I work for has given me a Compaq armada e500 laptop. The problem is that it's power-on password protected. They don't remember the password. I have tried to pull out the cmos battery for 6 hours and it didn't work. Is there some way I can disable it or bypass it so I can get into the bios or to a dosprompt and format the hdd. I have serach this forum and find a little program called killbios, will that program get rid of the password so I can continue? The power-on passwordbox appears just after the compaq logo. Roger

Kill CMOS may or may not work, I'm thinking it's worth a shot after you pull the battery one more time and short the terminals on the motherboard for at least 15 seconds. Some CMOS setups have a very small battery in the socket that holds the CMOS chip and some CMOS chips won't 'leak down' naturally, thus you force the voltage to ground with the short. Being a Compaq and a laptop to boot may mean special treatment, I'd look up the model at Compaq site and/or password issues there as well. It may not be the standard BIOS password system to which the above advice SHOULD work on.

Hi Coralin You can download the manual and get the correct instructions from the Copaq site, I did this for another model.

ive got the same prob with my compaq evo n1000c. Ive followed the password removal on the manual but no luck. it was removing cmos batt for 5mins but i did it for 24hrs still no luck. if anyone else knows how to resolve please let me know

KillBios wont work here... That program was designed for use when you were already logged in. There are a couble of things you can do...... first, for compaq, i would try the back door password... Here is a list of those back door passwords listed by computer manufactuer: Manufacturer Password VOBIS & IBM merlin Dell Dell Biostar Biostar Compaq Compaq Enox xo11nE Epox central Freetech Posterie IWill iwill Jetway spooml Packard Bell bell9 QDI QDI Siemens SKY_FOX TMC BIGO Toshiba Toshiba As you can see by this list, Compaq has opted to use the creative default password of.......Compaq.... Here is another tip.... You can create a bootable cd for dos. However this will not work if the boot sequence is after the bios login... You can find the downloadable boot images from this website... http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ Also... Many motherboards feature a set of jumpers or dipswitches that will clear the CMOS and wipe all of the custom settings including BIOS passwords. The locations of these jumpers / dipswitches will vary depending on the motherboard manufacturer and ideally you should always refer to the motherboard or computer manufacturers documentation. If the documentation is unavailable, the jumpers/dipswitches can sometimes be found along the edge of the motherboard, next to the CMOS battery, or near the processor. Some manufacturers may label the jumper / dipswitch  CLEAR - CLEAR CMOS - CLR - CLRPWD - PASSWD - PASSWORD - PWD. On laptop computers, the dipswitches are usually found under the keyboard or within a compartment at the bottom of the laptop.  Please remember to unplug your PC and use a grounding strip before reaching into your PC and touching the motherboard. Once you locate and rest the jumper switches,  turn the computer on and check if the password has been cleared. If it has, turn the computer off and return the jumpers or dipswitches to its original position. There are some more default passwords that i can give you if that backdoor password didnt work, But lets see if this works.... I stumbled upon this forum and wont be checking it again so if you need more help Email me at Valirian_Oak@msn.com and ill see what i can do Hope it helps